The program of Applied Modern Languages at Lumina - University of South-East Europe was created with the aim to circulate, cross and encourage exchanges between the Western cultural and linguistic space, represented by the English and French languages, on the one hand, and the emerging South - Eastern European space, on the border between continents and cultures. It is this positioning, between the East and the West, between the North and the South, between religions that represents the hallmark of our program, open to students from all over the world. Out approach is supported by the Enlightenment paradigm that has been encouraging us for nearly two centuries and a half to venture out.
In a world of accelerated interconnectedness, multiple regimes of mobility facilitate the encounters between individuals from different cultures. Cultural relocations triggered by temporary or permanent migration demand the analysis of the mechanisms by which cross-cultural communication is produced. The contemporary intersections between different languages and cultures modify traditional approaches to these concepts, imposing the need for their redefinition in more fluid terms. Our conference concerns itself with the transformation of linguistic and cultural boundaries as a consequence of multiple cultural contacts. It seeks out to establish mechanisms of linguistic and cultural translations, cultural and linguistic transfers and the types of identities shaped by these encounters. Considering the heterogeneous nature of the South-Eastern European cultural space as well as its contact with Western cultural productions, the first edition of our conference would like to establish the main patterns of cultural and linguistic dialogues produced at the intersection of these spaces.

During this inaugural conference, we will investigate the area of cultural and linguistic dynamics which makes the concept of our curriculum. The profusion and the dangers of these dynamics are fed by three types of multiplicities. From the political point of view, South -Eastern Europe has recently integrated EU regions, but also territories of „proximity ", where tensions are far from extinct. From a cultural and institutional point of view, this area has undergone changes just as contradictory, that make today’s societies waver between an (utopian) ideal of European integration following the Western model and (excessive) preservation and the creation of spatial regions of protection against the often brutal process of globalization. Finally, from a linguistic point of view, the major languages of the West successively won ephemeral victories: German, French, Russian have gradually been replaced by English, especially since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Today, it is in this space that two powers are developing whose influence continues to grow: Russia, with its former satellites, and Turkey, which bridges the gap between the small Europe and the Middle East, and it is always there that the regional and national identities endorse conflicting claims. Within these boundaries the scope and importance of the multilingual professional communication are growing. Professional communication in nowadays Europe requires a complex knowledge of national and european institutional cultures. Our conference wish to make its contribution to create better linguistic roads for this communication drive.
European integration under the aegis of the Declaration and the Bologna Process marked the democratization and internationalization of education. In a Europe that does not live up to expectations, learning and performing several languages and cultures contribute both to the refinement of skills acquired by the new generation and to the questioning of the dangerous effects of a very fast integration.

The debates within our conference aim to answer several questions:
To what extend does the ”central-marginal” pair remain a valid distinction for discussing linguistic and cultural identities at present?
What kinds of linguistic structures and cultural identities result from the interaction between ethnic and mainstream voices?
Which are the recent migration patterns that significantly influence cultural and linguistic configurations in Western and South-Eastern Europe?
To what extent are the “gender” and “race” dimensions relevant for the analysis of mobility trends in contemporary Europe?

The conference proposes to explore the following themes:
Independent / Autonomous language learning - Innovation in language teaching and learning - Language acquisition and learning - Language development, impairment, attrition, and loss (sociolinguistics)


Language teaching methodology - Language testing and assessment - Language program evaluation


Discourse Analysis - Institutional communication - professional communication

Cultural Studies - Cultural history - world literature - literature and media - Literary Translation - Comparative Literature - postcolonial studies - diasporic identities

Location: Bucharest, Lumina Universitywww.lumina.orgDates: 16-17 May 2014site: http://icaml.lumina.org/

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